Hawkins celebrates 50 years of her life’s work - reading

Charlie Hall/Sun Journal Staff

Saturday

Jan 11, 2014 at 12:01 AMJan 11, 2014 at 7:22 PM

Early memories are said to be lasting memories. For thousands of youngsters who have grown up in the New Bern area over the past half-century, one of those memories is “Telestory Time” on WCTI-TV-12 with Elinor Hawkins.

Early memories are said to be lasting memories. For thousands of youngsters who have grown up in the New Bern area over the past half-century, one of those memories is “Telestory Time” on WCTI-TV-12 with Elinor Hawkins.

The longtime leader of the Craven-Pamlico-Carteret County Regional Library system has been seen at 6 a.m. on Saturday mornings since 1963, reading magical tales and encouraging youngsters to read and for their parents to be involved.

Since Hawkins was asked in the fifth-grade to be the librarian’s after-school assistant in Morgantown, W.Va., books have been her dedication in life.

A special Thursday morning taping was held in the Hayden H. Jones Auditorium instead of the usual Children’s Theater venue. Hawkins wanted it that way because the late Hayden Jones was her close friend and co-worker for many years at the library.

The show, which aired Saturday morning, featured selected 4- and 5-year-old children from the story hour at the library. The children’s room at the Johnson Street library is named for Hawkins.

The birthday party celebrating the original Dec. 6, 1963, debut telecast is an annual event, chronicled in a bound photo album that Hawkins treasures.

Many people who learned to read through inspiration from the show came Thursday, to offer well-wishes and reminisce.

Paula Wetherington recalled that she was a viewer from age 3, when her father Paul built her a tiny rocking chair, just for view the Saturday morning show.

“I would pull that chair out every Saturday, very early,” Wetherington said. “Miss Elinor instilled a love of books for me and I couldn’t wait to be 6 so I could get my own library card.”

Hawkins said she received “inspiration” herself in the early days of the show, from her son John.

“I read him a lot of the books for the show to see what he thought,” she said.

John was at the birthday party, with his wife Kelli, and said he cherished the show, the advance readings and his mother’s other reading traditions, such as those on Christmas Eve, with “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

The party included some costumed characters from books, along with some special guests including Craven County Commissioner Scott Dacy and New Bern Mayor Dana Outlaw, who proclaimed it “Elinor Hawkins Day.”

The historical significance of 50 years of one-show, one-host, one-station was not lost on Hawkins.

“It was very emotional and I was trying to be calm,” she said of the taping. “I kept thinking about the years and how fast they have gone.”

She has done more than 3,000 children’s reading program TV shows, including New Bern and her early work at WFMY in Greensboro. The show count just on TV-12 is more than 2,600 segments.

She has an annual choice of a book for the party, called “The Boy Who Wanted To Be A Fish.”

Hawkins worked in libraries throughout elementary, high school and into college. The public library was in the basement of the fire department in Morgantown.

A sense of regular reading habits started at home.

“My mother (Susan Dixon) always took us to the library on Thursday to check out books,” she recalled. “I became addicted to reading, but we did not have a story hour or a children’s room. We were so fortunate to have mother to read to us. She was a former school teacher.”

Hawkins’ first paid job came during college in 1945. She was paid 25-cents-per-hour as a page at Fairmount State College in West Virginia. That was the minimum wage.

Hawkins and her husband Carroll, who met while she was in library school at UNC, came from Baltimore, where she was a children’s librarian, to Greensboro in 1951.

She couldn’t find a children’s librarian job, so she became head of circulation for the Greensboro Public Library. One day, she saw a newspaper ad for auditions for a TV host of a children’s reading show.

Naturally, she got the job and she began her broadcasting career in June of 1952.

“That’s when it was black and white (TV) and live,” she said. The show continued for her until 1958 when Carroll was transferred in his N.C. Department of Revenue job to New Bern. Elinor got the job as librarian at the New Bern library, then housed in the John Wright Stanly House on New Street.

“We had story hours there. We filled the big hall and up the stairway, so I was able to be doing stories again,” she said.

After the TV station started in September of 1963, she got a call about doing a “Telestory Time” in New Bern.

She suspects that someone at the New Bern station had seen the Greensboro show.

Hawkins had majored in English and minored in speech and drama at Fairmount, which included some live radio, complete with sound effects.

“Television was so new then,” she said. She and Carroll didn’t own a TV when she started the Greensboro show.

“Not everyone had one. On your special shows, you would go to neighbors. It was like pioneer days,” she said.

Her pioneer days have now made her the host of one of the country’s longest running local programming broadcasts.

“It is a great opportunity to go into children’s homes every Saturday, through the magic of television,” she said. “I introduce them to the wonder world of books and I always remind them to visit any of the libraries in the Craven-Pamlico-Carteret Regional Library System. They need to know that they can have their own library card.”

Her motto is simple: “Reading can be fun.”

She chooses the books on the show for their imagination and magic - happy stories.

Hawkins was inspired by a poem - “A Book.”

She can recite it: “A book, I think, is very like a little golden door that takes me into places where I have never been before. It leads me into fairy land or countries strange and far. And, best of all, the golden door always stands ajar.”

She calls family reading time one of the most rewarding experiences anyone can have.

“Parents today need to know what a priority that is,” she said. “It is one of the best investments they can make in their children’s lives. It will last forever.”

Charlie Hall can be reached at 252-635-5667 or charlie.hall@newbernsj.com

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